Artist Kate Kretz has created a beautifully detailed painting of Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary with her three children called “Blessed Art Thou.” It will be shown at the Art Miami Fair at the Miami Beach Convention Centre in the Chelsea Galleria booth from January 5th to 8th. The thing I love about the painting is that Angelina hovers on a cloud over a perfectly ordinary scene from inside a Walmart, with average people and racks of celebrity magazines off to the side. If you look at it quickly you’re almost fooled into thinking it’s a picture of a painting hanging inside an actual store.

This painting addresses the celebrity worship cycle. The title, “Blessed Art Thou”, is taken from a line in the Catholic prayer “Hail Mary”: “…blessed art thou among women”. Our culture is deifying celebrities, but in the bible, it is the meek who are blessed, so the title presents a question for the viewer to ponder.

I chose a setting where the cycle begins: psychologically oppressive environments like this one are one of the feeding sources for the consumer, hungry for “information” about the celebrity’s private life. I am interested in the psychological ramifications of celebrity worship, particularly as they relate to class.

Angelina Jolie was chosen as the subject because of her unavoidable presence in the media, the world-wide anticipation of her child, her “unattainable” beauty and the good that she is doing in the world through her example, which adds another layer to the already complicated questions surrounding her status.

She’s already had several offers to purchase the painting and seems kind of amazed at the attention it’s getting. Well, she could have anticipated it. We can’t get enough of those holy celebrities.

I think it’s an interesting painting. We see Angelina in this painting as if she were an angel or a God. Below her are average women, mothers and grandmothers. They likely MARRIED before having their children. They put on weight from the stress of holding a 9-5 job and trying to raise children and run a household, without the help of nannies. They shop at Wal-mart, looking for a way to save a buck or two, since thier money has been spent raising their children and sending them to college. A flag hangs from the ceiling, signifiying that this IS America. This is what real American women do and what their lives are like. I think it’s a very interesting painting.

the painting is decent, but why does she have to be a saint? is she the onle person to have EVER adopted children? Rosie O’Donnell adopted more kids than angelina did, but we don’t see anyone putting her up on a pedestal.

I am absolutely amazed by this. I wish this woman would disappear. Why is anyone elevating her?

As many have said, she is NOT the first to adopt nor will she be the last. Why the big deal – take a look at someone like Mia Farrow who has adopted children from all over and not just healthy children – she has taken in so many children with disabilities – so have a lot of other woman around this country.

yes iva you are dumb is art done by a person that has nothing to do with angelina she chose her you are just mad dislike her all you want the fact is not everybody feels like you and the fact she is getting offers from people to buy it says they like it go release youre anger some where else an artist rendition of a person is not consulted on the subject of it alot of the time because she is not being slander it’s her view she sees her this way perhaps if you where an artist and did a painting like this using somebody that you like and others did not it would not be the subjects fault just the people who do not reconise human beings can do what they want with their talent

I love the painting and the artist has added a touch of whimsy in the details. Over at the taboid rack there’s an Us Weekly mag with Jennifer Aniston on the cover with the headline: “Why Vince left.” I’d ROTFLMAO…great picture.

The painting is pure kitsch, I love it! By including the Walmart part (as depressing as every Walmart I’ve ever seen) she’s really made it into a statement about our culture. Cheap, disposable, bland and living vicariously though celebrity worship. Sadly, most people don’t get irony and see it as “elevating” Angelina. Love the comment about “classy” Walmart. Walmart smells like death by depression and fast food. That IS USA indeed.

I really th9ink that the painting is good i feel that although angelina has not always been my favorite person i do think she is using her stardom for good things ( or at least trying) I love celebitchy and enjoy the site!!!!

This is just absurd! This nation has got to get it together man. This woman is no saint and by far should not be put on a religious pedestal. I am a mother and I am attractive and have a great body and I do shop at walmart. I doubt she does.

People…stop idolizing the rich and famous and do it to your own elves. C’mon. We need to celebrate the new year with alot more common sense and dignity for our sacred souls. Good day to you all.

The idolizing of celebrities and how this is a bit out of proportion is exactly what this painting tries to address. How can the meaning of this painting be so lost on you?

The ladies in the Wallmart standing in front of the gossip magazines possibly are the admirers spending their time in a less idyllic setting. Their reality: the Wallmart, the McDonald’s, the neon-lights. Their dreaming about celebrities is just a form of escapism, the American way – as the flag indicates. If they could only be as beautiful, as good as blessed as Angelina … Well, they can always dream about it.

Whether Angelina herself in reality perceives her life this way is besides the point. It is about how she is portrayed and perceived.

This painting is a criticism of an aspect of the American way of life. The superficiality of some of it, the depressing hollowness. It has nothing to do with Angelina. It has nothing to do with how you look either.

Look at it again and look up the word “satire” in the dictionary: … “trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly”. Place the painting in this light and you’ll get a better understanding. —

This is insane…
Lets see, She broke up a marriage, had children before she was married, used adopting those poor children as a way to devert the public…and she is now painted as a saint ???? give me a break….!!!!!!!!!!

Oh My God Irony elevated to an Art Form!!! CNN says the title is “Twelve Items or Less.”… how better to epitomize this slut than as cheap and easy, just like Wal-Mart! Only difference is, with Wal-Mart cheap and easy take on a good connotation for the hardworking of us, for this home-wrecking inflatable-raft-lipped bimbo it’s the mockery she deserves.. AMEN !!!!

Terri ann YOU ROCK!!! I can’t wait to see this ho get taken down… I for one think Jen Aniston’s victory will be as sweet as Nicole Kidman’s, who after dealing with dickTom refused to descend to his level, maintained her class and ultimately won out with uber-hot Keith Urban, while Scien-tom-ogy wack burns out with his ho…how ironic that the two poster children for bimboism – Anjokeleeena and jaws-wired-shut Katie – spawned their poor kids at the same press cycle… I think Jen should buy the $50K WalMart Art, yes???!!

Terri Ann you totally get it!!! It’s so time the public saw this caricature for what she is…a larger than life phony… poor kids of hers, wait till they see the press pics of ms. holy in her Morticia makeup with a vial of blood around her neck from her former photo-op boyfriend…what a common whore.

Srsly? Nicole Kidman struck out with possible cheater, and permanently in rehab Urban?

Really? I don’t think so. That poor woman seem shellshocked after her divorce from Cruise, and it took her more than a few relationships with morons and cheaters before she got to Urban. And even then, he’s no great shakes on the face of it.

And then Aniston rebounds with Vince Vaughn and he can’t avoid cheating either?

So what if Angelina had a vial of blood around her neck, at least she didn’t try to hide her crazy. Plenty of these celebs walking around like butter wouldn’t melt are batshit out of their gourd – it’s just that their public image and PI is immaculately managed.

All these people judging Angelina just because they know some details they consider unsavoury and then vaunt up other celebs who have never suffered an image dent just makes me laugh and cry all that the same time. Hypothetically Aniston could be sitting at home drinking bats blood out of doll’s heads for all we know.

With celebs – any celeb – just like any person, you just don’t really know.

So they got their hair styled and look nice, what does that say other that they have a good stylist and the common sense to take their advice?

Kerri and Terri Ann u are it!!! U made my day. What better way to say express lane/12 items or less than this short-attention-span whore whose only saving grace is daddys money and fat lips ! You obviously got the irony, or should i say pathos, that this gifted artist, a friend of mine, was striving for. Yes a subtext is perhaps the rabid attention we give tabloid fodder like Jolie and her transparent celebrity spin of the moment, but even more important is how those of us who are real can at the end of the day see through her phony transparency, laugh together at her, and in so doing remind ourselves of what’s real. Not the bimbo who makes more than she’s worth and fools the public by adopting an African baby as an accessory, but real honest to God people like us.

Celebitchy, is it at all possible to contact the artist? Kevin claims that he is a friend of the artist and I am suspect that that isn’t true. In which case the artist should know that his/her work is being misrepresented in a public forum.

Julie, give me a break. What makes youu think that the art is being misrepresented? Whether or not Kevin is a friend of the artist is neither here nor there. In the end art will be interpreted through the eyes of each individual. All artists know this. Everyone might not get the meaning which was implied when the art was conceived. Most artists will let the creation speak for itself rather than worrying about how it is represented or mis-represented by the public.

Yes, art is interpreted in the eyes of it’s beholders. My concern is that Kevin is claiming the artist’s intent. I suspect the artist would be thrilled that there are so many interpretations, and not a single one is wrong, but to say that “I know the artist” and “this is what the artist meant” is damning to the work, if that isn’t true. Others who read this forum, unaware that some people have posted under multiple names, etc. could wrongly think that the artist is communicating something that he/she isn’t.

If what the artist meant really is that AJ is a “whore” with “fat lips” then so be it. I don’t care about the interpretations or what it really means. I do care when people lie and coerce others into believing something that isn’t true.

First and foremost, Angelina is far from Mother Mary. As much as she portrays to be a good role, the public are not going to buy that she did not entice someone else’s husband to have an affair with her. Wasnt it also a huge thing for her at the time to have a lesbian relationship? Even if it werent true, it is very insulting to Mother Mary to be even compared to a woman with wordly earthly woman. For one Angelina is not humble.

The artist should be boycotted and is looking for attention. The artist intended this to happen to make a name for herself. It is the artist that should be criticized, the artist do not respect the image of the Virgin Mary.

I don’t know why some people dislike her so much. Just because she’s beautiful, etc…. Also she seems sincere, mature, and humble in her interviews. However, she was stupid to take Brad Pitt. He’s just so annoying!! She needs a better man.

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